The table was set, the smell of warm food still lingered in the air, but the only thing that seemed to breathe was the tension. You sat in your usual place, trying to disguise the weight that fell over every evasive glance from your children.

Venom was at the other end, arms crossed, his expression hardened as if he were still wearing the helmet. He barely spoke. When he did, his words fell like stones.

You shouldn’t… he muttered, with that dry, grave voice. That’s not the way to do things.

Your fingers tightened around the tablecloth, because you knew what was coming. The eldest, carrying that restrained anger he could no longer hide, looked at him directly, unafraid this time:—And what right do you have to say anything? —he spat—. When you don’t even show us that you care.

The silence was brutal. Your youngest put his fork down on the plate, looking at you with those fearful eyes that sought refuge in you, not him. Venom didn’t answer right away. His jaw tightened, that twitch in his neck showed he wanted to respond, but he didn’t. He just sat there, distant, as if the boy’s words had struck nothing more than an invisible armor.

And yet, you saw it. That fleeting spark of pain in his eyes. That crack that closed as quickly as it had appeared.

Your children lowered their gaze, resigned, and you felt the open wound grow a little deeper. Dinner went on in silence, only the clinking of cutlery against plates filling the room.

You couldn’t stop thinking about it: how the man you loved, the one who once promised you a family, was slowly losing the right to be called a father in the eyes of his own children.